Aerial vehicles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (“UAV”) technology has proven to be a very useful tool for military purposes, goods and payload delivery. Still, there is a lack of aerial vehicles and UAVs management systems, particularly in an urban environment. Meanwhile, safety and regulatory measures for aerial vehicles/UAVs will be detailed in the coming years to facilitate safe flights in an urban environment.
Currently, FAA regulations require UAVs to fly only during daylight or civil twilight, at or below 400 feet. And don't fly in controlled airspace near airports without FAA permission (around 5 miles).
Modern aerial vehicles have on-board GPS/ADS-b equipment, sensors collision avoidance systems, but the ever growing number of these vehicles must be centrally controlled in congested urban airspace.
In March 2018, the FAA announced that it was expanding beta testing of its automated Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC), to 300 air traffic facilities covering 500 airports beginning April 30. Drone/UAS operators using LAANC can receive near real-time airspace authorizations, thus decreasing waits compared to manual authorizations, which can take days. The automated system also allows air traffic controllers to see where planned drone operations will take place.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,380,425 by Duggan titled: “Autonomous collision avoidance system for unmanned aerial vehicles” presents a system that senses a potential object of collision and generates a moving object track for the potential object of collision. The auto avoidance module utilizes the information to generate a guidance maneuver that facilitates the unmanned aerial vehicle avoiding the potential object of collision.
Another example of a collision-avoidance system is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 9,875,661 by Kunzi titled: “Dynamic collision-avoidance system and method”. Kunzi discloses an obstacle-avoidance system for aerial vehicles comprising a plurality of sensors configured to detect collision threats within a predetermined distance of the vehicle and a processor. Using the obstruction data, the processor identifies a direction for avoiding said obstruction.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,378,881 by LeMire titled: “Systems and methods for collision avoidance in unmanned aerial vehicles” relates to a method for collision avoidance system for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), including scanning for objects using a plurality of phased array radar sensors, wherein the scan information includes information indicative of objects detected within the preselected range of the UAV, determining maneuver information including whether to change a flight path of the UAV based on the scan information, and sending the maneuver information to a flight control circuitry of the UAV.
US 20180101782 by Gohl titled: “Systems and methods for determining predicted risk for a flight path of an unmanned aerial vehicle” provides an invention for determining predicted risk for a flight path of an unmanned aerial vehicle, wherein the 3D representation reflects a presence of objects and object existence accuracies for the individual objects. A user-created flight path may be obtained for a future unmanned aerial flight within the three-dimensional representation of the user-selected location. Predicted risk may be determined for individual portions of the user-created flight path based upon the three-dimensional representation of the user-selected location.
Ceccherelli in his US 20180122249 titled: “Collision avoidance systems” presents a system where the UAV includes a low power RF beacon which transmits signals over a predefined frequency monitored by manned aerial vehicles.
Schultz in US 20180068187 titles: “Unmanned aircraft obstacle avoidance” discloses a collision detection and avoidance system configured to: receive a flight path with instructions for the UAV and execute a target path for traveling around the obstacle.
There are a number of prior art patents and patent applications disclosing aerial vehicles navigation systems. None of them presents a system presents a specific invention for centralized aerial vehicles control in an urban aerospace with all its specifics and characteristics, while minimizing a total of aerial vehicles maneuvers, and especially with flying above an existing roads system.
One example of such patent is in U.S. Pat. No. 8,874,360 by Klinger titled: “Autonomous vehicle and method for coordinating the paths of multiple autonomous vehicles”. Klinger presents an invention where after the first planned path associated with the second vehicle is received, a second planned path is generated based on the first planned path associated with the second vehicle and at least one of the mission requirement assigned to the first vehicle or the first planned path of the first vehicle. The second planned path of the first vehicle is then transmitted to the second vehicle.
Paduano in his U.S. Pat. No. 9,958,875 titled: “Autonomous cargo delivery system” presents an autonomous aerial system for delivering a payload to a waypoint. In Paduano, the system may be configured to autonomously navigate the aerial vehicle to the waypoint and to determine whether to touchdown at the designated touchdown zone based at least in part on physical characteristics of the designated touchdown zone perceived via said sensor package.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,384,668 “Transportation using network of unmanned aerial vehicles” by Raptopoulos provides an UAV delivery system wherein a plurality of ground stations configured to communicate with UAVs and provide location information other UAVs to locate a ground station location. In certain embodiments, the delivery vehicles autonomously navigate from one ground station to another, in other embodiments, the ground stations provide navigational aids that help the delivery vehicles locate the position of the ground station with increased accuracy.
Duffy U.S. Pat. No. 9,495,877 in “Airspace deconfliction system and method” presents an aircraft deconfliction system, wherein an override unit takes remedial action when said aircraft breaches said threshold.
Gentry in his U.S. Pat. No. 9,858,822 “Airspace activity tracking using unmanned aerial vehicles” discloses the system wherein UAVs on the mesh network utilize local and central mesh database information for self-identification and to maintain a dynamic flight plan. The system also presents a flight management system that collects UAVs location information and transmitting to other UAVs a notification that includes at data that tracks aircraft in the airspace. U.S. Pat. No. 9,646,502 by Gentry discloses a similar system.
US 20170263132 “Aerial vehicle air traffic control and flight plan management” by Butler presents a method of air traffic control for drones wherein each drone flight plan comprises a sequence of 4D cells, attempting to place an exclusive lock on behalf of the drone on the 4D cell, and in response to a failure to place the exclusive lock on behalf of the drone on the 4D cell, rerouting the modified flight plan to a random neighboring 4D cell.
Amazon Company in article “Revising the Airspace Model for the Safe Integration of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems” (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2182311-amazon-revising-the-airspace-model-for-the-safe.html) proposes a plan to reserve airspace between 200 feet and 400 feet above the ground exclusively for fully autonomous drones. This airspace would be open only to pilotless aircraft that are self-operating and equipped with navigation and communication systems, as well as collision avoidance technology.
Voom and Uber companies started to provide helicopter air taxi services in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2017. Helicopter-based air taxis fly from Sao Paolo airport to a number of landing rooftop locations in downtown.
Several other air taxi providers intend to start their operations in Sao Paolo, Mexico City, Dubai and New York.
When the number of air taxis will increase, there will be a strong need in air traffic control in the urban environment. Therefore centralized air traffic control system for safely and centrally controlling urban aerial vehicles environment is necessary.